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The Chain Gang Diary Competition Feb 2008 - Winner

Roger Zanitsch - USA

7-14 July – Saturday Morning to Saturday Morning

Our train left on time for Paris St. Lazare. Our travel mates this time were a young Canadian couple from Charles Town, Prince Edward Island. She was a policewoman and he a wastewater plant operator. They had been traveling on EuroRail Passes and had been to Iceland (apparently by air not rail), Belgium, France and Germany and were now on their way to Ashford, England to visit friends. They were planning to take a ferry over to England but had no idea how or where. Nice people . . . first that I’ve ever met from PEI.

We arrived in Paris St. Lazare and took the Metro to Mont Parnasse Station like the veterans we now were. After a sandwich lunch that did not compare to the first baguette we shared, we sat and waited for the next two hours for our train to Angouleme. Angouleme is on the line running to the city of Bordeaux but one or two stops earlier. The plan was to meet up with the folks from The Chain Gang who were also collecting a group arriving on the same train from Paris.

Our train on this line was not as nice as the EuroStar or the train to Caen but okay. It had six cars in back and six in front with the engine in the middle. It was a pleasant enough ride on a sunny day through farmland dotted with beautiful fields of sunflowers. We saw quite a few modern windmills and a lot of cows. We passed through LeMans and Pottiers as well as a number of other larger towns on this milk run to Bordeaux on our three hour journey on the high speed train.

The Chain Gang guides met us in Angouleme without a hitch. Mike from Exeter, and TJ from London took our bags and then rounded up the others bikers on the train. We met Kevin from Cork, Ireland, Stuart and Emily from Aberdeen, Scotland and Ian and Sharon from London via New Zealand. We all packed into a van and were driven to Les Eyzies de Tayac (pronounced “lazy ZEE”) in the heart of the Perigord Noir from which we would embark on our bike tour in the morning.

The one and a half hour drive gave us time to introduce ourselves and for Megan and I to bore everyone with our travel problems getting here. The further we drove, the more hilly and beautiful the scenery became…was this an indication of what was to come for us bikers?

Les Eyzies is a small crossroads in the hills at the headwaters of the Dordogne River, one of the most scenic rivers in Europe and the place where the Cro Magnon Man was discovered. The hillsides are covered with cliffs and caves that our ancestors must have found attractive.

We arrived at our hotel, Le Moulin de la Beune, in the very center of Les Eyzies along a gurgling stream. Set in a deep valley below an old stone bridge, the stone hotel and adjoining restaurant were once part of a mill, complete with a waterwheel. The vegetation along the stream, in the garden and up the walls made this first spot on our biking tour of Bordeaux a memorable one.

After unpacking, we met with the group for a drink in the garden where everyone was reintroduced and Mike gave us an overview of the next seven days. We met our last couple for the tour, Mark and Alyson from Kingston, Ontario bring the number in our group to eleven including our two guides.

Mike passed out three maps covering the area we would be touring. They were fairly detailed but still not enough to show the back roads we’d be traveling. He and TJ had even more detailed maps for that purpose.

It was at this point that Mike, the only one of us to ever be on this particular tour before, informed us that his father had died a week ago and he would have to be leaving us in the capable hands of TJ, our 19 year old guide that had never been here before. Mike would be leaving Tuesday morning and returning Thursday night.

We learned a little about each other including:

• Mike, our intrepid leader (or so we thought) from Exeter, is the brother of Bernard who owns The Chain Gang. He is helping his brother for the summer, who is understaffed at the moment. He is about 40 years old and married with two daughters. He has recently returned to school to become a teacher. He is fluent in French and had lived in the Loire Valley for a year or two with his family before moving back to Exeter, thanks to some pressure from his wife. Biking is not his favorite sport. He had just completed a tour in the Loire Valley last week.
• TJ, our junior guide (or so we thought), is from London and is 19 years old. His father is best friends with Bernard, apparently sharing a common interest in bike touring in France. He is even more fluent in French, which may be his first language since his family is Lebanese Christian. As a veteran guide of two weeks, TJ has never done the Bordeaux route before so it will be a first time for him as well as the rest of us save Mike.
• Mark is an orthopedic surgeon, specializing in hip and knee replacements at a teaching hospital in Ontario. A very tall guy in his early 40’s in good shape and obviously a biker. Mark’s wife, Alyson, is a psychologist working with students at the university. Alyson is a take charge personality that became the life of the party as the week wore on. I had the suspicion that she was psychoanalyzing us all for some group therapy paper she was going to write when she got home. They are obviously sado-masochistic since are on a two-week bike tour, doing the Dordogne with Mike next week. This should have been a tip off that they were really into biking.
• Stuart and Emily are a young couple from Aberdeen, Scotland, “living in sin” as she told Megan. Stuart is an IT specialist and Emily a geologist. I can’t say I’ve ever met a geologist that wasn’t teaching geology and never one that that was female.
• Kevin Corr is from Cork (pronounced caark), Ireland and is a contract electrical engineer. He is on holiday between contracts, a benefit of this career path. He has been on one other bike tour in Britany with a different company. He too is young.
• Ian and Sharon are a brother and sister Kiwi act now working in London. Sharon, I believe, works in with money and Ian travels the world consulting on something or other. Ian, a bright, inquisitive guy with penetrating eyes, has a delightful sense of humor. They are young just like all the others.

It should now be apparent that Megan and I are by far the senior members of this group. Our first surprise was seeing the size of the hills we would be traversing on our bike. The second surprise was the youth of our fellow bikers. We sensed that we may be in trouble.

Dinner was a prix fixe affair on the patio at the hotel restaurant. I had risotto with cepes, roast duck (a staple in the Dordogne) and a fruit tart. Megan had cod with lentils as her entrée. Both meals were excellent.

The group wine choices were Garrar Liac 2004, a dry Bergerac and Chateau Terra Vieille 2000, Pecharmant. Both were outstanding as rated by the group.

We retired by 11 pm with eager anticipation of starting the tour tomorrow in the sunny Dordogne. We drifted off to sleep to the lovely sound of the bubbling stream outside our third floor window with dreams of little cro magnons running around outside.

We had a light breakfast of rolls, bread and coffee…not exactly the breakfast of champions for bikers we learned. At 9:30 am we walked into the village in the rain to the place where the bikes were stored. Fortunately, it was next to a restaurant that had an patio under cover. It took a good two hours to fit the nine of us with Trek touring bikes, panniers, rain gear and helmets. We enjoyed some more good French roast coffee while we waited in the rain.

We took off in the rain about 11:15 am for the town of le Bogue following back roads and lanes up over hills and through dales. Everything was lush green and wet. We stopped in le Bogue for a cup of strong coffee. A bigger town than Lez Eyzies but equally as charming with the added feature of the roaring river Vezere flowing through it.

Leaving le Bogue and climbing a long hill, we arrived at a 600 year old stone church in the middle of nowhere built by Henry II as penance for offing Thomas-a-Becket. We walked through the cemetery and into the church which was quite primitive and austere but lovely nonetheless. The adjacent farm was growing tobacco of all things.

We had lunch in the rain is an open-air barn of an old farmhouse restaurant named La Chai in the village of Limeuil, at the confluence of the Vezere and the Dordogne. We were all wet and cold so it was nice to get out of rain even though it was still cold. We ordered off the menu and it was at this point that although Mike and TJ were fluent in French and Mark and Alyson spoke Canadian French (I suppose the locals think they are hillbillies), nobody reliably spoke “Restaurant French”.

The Dordogne is the very heart of foie gras country...meaning it is not a good place to be a duck. If you’re a duck, they not only roast you, they force feed you to make your liver triple in size and turn to pure lard. It was here that we learned that foie gras would be on every menu we saw for the rest of the week…lunch and dinner.

I had a lovely salad of foie gras, gizzards and smoked duck…thought I might as well go native and get this over with all at once. Megan chickened out and chose a veggie salad. We all made a pit stop in the farmhouse where we learned the idiosyncrasies of French farmhouse plumbing…a skill that would come in handy at future luncheons.

After lunch we made a steep, long climb during which Megan lost her chain and her “mojo” for the first time. She should have had the foie gras and gizzards for added energy. The rain intensity increased as we climbed even further until we got to the top and could enjoy the beautiful Dordogne scenery. The river, way below us, wound around a long loop against shear rock walls. Across the river, a charming farm with many stone outbuildings and groomed pastures and fields spread across the fertile plain. This stunning loop in the Dordogne is known as the Cingle de Tremolat.

We journeyed past Tremolat and along a canal ending in the town of Lalinde along the now widening Dordogne. Our inn, The Hotel Perigord, was situated in the heart of the village where we secured our bikes in a locked garage with no side walls. Our room was adequate but small with a shower that I couldn’t bend over in.

Mike organized taxis to take take us to dinner at Le Petite Auberge at Pont de Couze, a neighboring town only 10 minutes away. The little restaurant, situated right over a small but fast-moving stream, is owned by a Frenchman who spent twenty years managing the Four Seasons hotel in Montreal. As a result, his English was excellent and his interpretation of the menu subtleties was more reliable.

I started with sardines, lightly pan fried followed by escargot and a salmon/cod entrée. This was accompanied by some brie on toast that was excellent. I closed with some nougat ice cream. Megan had the entrecote entrée (French for both “steak” and “shoe leather” she learned.)

We all enjoyed a Chateau Pintoquet Bergerac Sec 2005 (white) and a Chateau de Panisseau Bergerac 2001 (red) in anticipation of touring the Bergerac region tomorrow.

The group was starting to meld as we each learned more about our biking skills (or lack thereof) as well as learning more about each other. Our age was apparent against the young Turks who seemed more interested in the biking than the scenery. Our priorities were just the opposite. The food wasn’t all that great but the hospitality was top shelf. We truly felt welcome and our being there appreciated.

On Monday morning we took on the back roads to our first wine tasting. The ride was very nice on this breezy, warm morning but we soon learned that all wineries are on top of hills. We did ride along a nice canal to the gates of a prison before making our way up into the hills. We also stopped along the river to take some photos of swans swimming in the rapidly current of the river.

We arrived at Chateau Tiregand in the quality wine appellation of Pecharment within Bergerac. Located at the end of a long, tree-lined lane, , Chateau Tiregand is owned by the le Compe de Saint Exupery, a decendent of Antoine de St. Exupery of flying and The Little Prince fame.

Chateau Tiregand is noted primarily for its red wines but also produces white Bergerac sweet wines as well. Their vineyards are mostly 15-22 years old merlot, cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon vines that favor the gravelly to clay soil on this hilly north side of the Dordogne River. They need to grow the roots down to the clay to create their unique the “terroir”. We learned that the cabernet sauvignon leaves are distinguished by holes at the base of three of five leaves compared to the merlot which has no holes but otherwise identical leaves.

We toured the winery, which produces about 160,000 cases a year on about 300 acres. Tiregand is not a small operation. They will start harvesting the grapes in September but will begin weeding and thinning in August to enhance the development of the fruit. They steep the grapes in the their skins for 10-12 days to develop the rich colors and tastes of their reds and rose’s before fermenting in tanks and then barrels.

We tasted their Vin Blanc Sec 2005, which was dry and very nice, especially at about 4.50 euro per bottle. Next we sampled their 2005 Rose’ and their 2004 Clos Montallanie Percharmont (54% merlot), neither of which I found to be remarkable. The 2005 Chateau de Tiregand Percharmont, aged in wood for one year, was much better.

We took a short ride into Bergerac for an al fresco lunch along the river. We had the “Express” lunch consisting of chicken breast with tarragon and rice, zucchini and mushrooms and a beer followed by Irish coffee and a sweet dessert….this ain’t McDonald’s.

Riding out of Bergerac we climbed another long hill with TJ as our guide. Mike, Mark and Alyson had to take a detour into town to find a bike shop to install a handlebar riser for tall Mark’s bike. The rest of us proceeded to get totally lost on a slow uphill climb in the hills of Monbazillac. TJ checked and rechecked his maps, made some calls back to Bernard in Exeter and lead us Lemmings on up the hill in search of our next chateau. Megan ‘hit the wall” but steadfastly pumped on.

We finally stumbled upon Chateau Caillael, finding the other trio eagerly awaiting our arrival. Chateau Caillael is the antithesis of Chateau Tiregand. It is a small operation and to call it a chateau is a stretch of the term. Our hostess gave us a very long winded explanation of the making of the Monbazillac late harvest wines. They have about producers of these sweet wines in Monbazillac and they are all trying to improve quality to compete with their high-priced cousins producing sauternes “aways down the road”. They take umbrage at referring to the wines as “dessert wines”, believing they are more of an aperitif beverage…it’s still a dessert wine to me.

This area is prone to producing the “noble rot” on the grapes that is essential to enhancing their sweetness. The foggy, cool weather is a key factor in the process as is hand-picking to thin the grape clusters in creating the super sweet grapes. The grapes are then hand-picked in three harvests. The producers used to machine pick the grapes and were not interested so much in maximizing quality, opting instead for quantity. Since 1988, machine picking is no longer allowed.

We started tasting a lot of different sweet wines of various vintages. The 1988 Prestige had flavors of honey, the 2001 Class of nuts and the 2003 of apricots…or so I was told although I liked the 2003 the best.

We left Chateau Caillael around 5:30 pm feeling a bit tipsy and well-informed on the subtleties of Monbazillac late harvest wines. A very good, friendly and long tasting by a small producer.

We made a steady, windy climb over the next 12-14 miles to Sainte Foy la Grande and our lodging for the night at The Grande Hotel. Arriving exhausted and late, we quickly bathed and turned out for a prix fixe dinner at the hotel. The menu consisted of a wonderful scallop cassolet St. Coquille, a tough but tasty entrecote’ with gratin potatoes and a cheese plate. Our wine selection was a 2004 Chateau Courde de Alton Bergerac Sed and a 2001 Chateau Puy-Sevrain Terent Montravel.

We were up at 8am Tuesday morning for a breakfast of delicious croissants and juice. Megan and I took a stroll through the village of St. Foy le Grande and said goodbye to Mike who was off to Exeter for the funeral. With TJ in the lead, we biked across the River Dordogne and uphill to vineyard country. Our first goal of the day was to find Chateau Puy-Servain where we were scheduled to meet owner/enologist Daniel Le Coy for a tour and tasting.

Located on a lovely hilltop overlooking vineyards for 360 degrees, Charteau Puy-Servain is situated in the Montraroll appellation, the best in Bergerac. Daniel has 50 hectares or red and 50 of white grapes. I asked why some of the field had sunflowers instead of grapevines to which he replied that some of the soil does not have the right terrior for grape growing and others are in an eight year turnaround before planting new vines.

Daniel produces eleven wines from six grape varietals including merlot, semillon, and malbec. He ages his wines in temperature controlled concrete vats and in French oak barrels. He sometimes freezes some of the grapes` to break down the tartaric acid to give the wines added body. It was obvious that he knew his stuff and enjoyed what he did. He claimed that his wines were more like those of St. Emilion than the typical Bergerac wines. We tasted a lot of wines, some of which I poured myself since Daniel was on the phone. Here are seven that I tasted:

• Chateau Puy-Servain Teremont 2006 – A dry white that I liked at 5.60 euro per bottle.
• Chateau Puy-Servain Margolcine – A barrel fermented merlot blend.
• Chateau Calabre – Exports to US. Touch of mosadel???.
• Chateau Calibre Rose’
• Chateau Calibre Rouge 2005 – A merlot/cab franc/cab sauvignon blend. Very nice.
• Chateau Puy-Servain Veilles Vignes 2002 and 2003

Daniel says that his 2005 Chateau Puy-Servain reds will be bottled on Friday and that this will be his best vintage yet. We should watch for his Chateau Puy-Servain Cuvee Songe and Terremont, both are his best wines. The Chateau Calibre wines are made from his second growth or the younger vines and are more drinkable young.

After sampling a lot of wines, we hopped back on our bikes in a merry mood. TJ lead us through the country side, stopping often to check his maps and occasionally call Bernard. We eventually arrived at a busy crossroads where we found a little country restaurant that had a fixed lunch menu for 11 euro each. I’m not certain that this was our destination but it worked for me. We were all hungry from our morning wine tasting workout.

The restaurant was a modest venue full of locals who stared at this group of foreigners crowding their old haunt. The restroom was an outside affair and when Alyson accidentally left the door to the outside ajar, this old geezer got up and went over and slammed the door behind her. We got the message never to pull that again.

Our family style meal started with a plate of mortadella followed by some wonderful rattaouille and sliced pork. We wrapped it up with a selection of cheeses and then a selection from the dessert tray…Megan had a banana while I went for the custard. The only loser was the table wine which even diluted with water … a trick we observed the locals using…was dreadful. By this time the locals had cleared out and a group of men started a conversation in French with those of us who spoke it or pretended to. They made up for the old door slammer.

We started on some back roads with little traffic, necessitating frequent stops to check our route on the detail map. By this time, Mark had begun helping TJ, who seemed bewildered at times by the many little roads and byways. We had to cross a main highway and in the process, my panniers jammed in my rear wheel causing me to come to a screeching stop as an 18-wheeler came barreling down on me. I don’t know what he was yelling but I’m quite certain they weren’t words of encouragement. We had a pretty long ride ahead of us to get to St. Emilion, our end point for the day.

The route to St. Emilion was not a direct one. In an effort to avoid the main road, we had to navigate a maze of small lanes with no roads markers. To add to the problem of navigation, we now faced a long up hill climb in heavy rain. We climbed quite a bit in the growing darkness of the heavy rains in a race to get to St. Emilion in time for a scheduled tasting. We passed our first grand cru, Chateau Lagoss, a beautiful set of buildings oozing with the smell of money. Everything looked to be first class.

The frequent task of stopping to figure out where we were added to the length of the ride. We finally arrived at the gates to the walled town of St. Emilion in a real downpour. We walked our bikes in the darkness to a courtyard by the wall where we locked our bikes and hoofed it through the narrow streets to our hotel, St. Emilion is a lovely 8th to 11th century walled town on a hilltop with a beautiful cathedral and many charming buildings all crowded in a small area.

Our hotel, Auberge de la Commanderie, was pleasant but stark ala Scandinavian. The room was okay but made more special by the view from the French windows overlooking the cathedral and the roof of old buildings along narrow cobblestone streets stretching down the hill.

Earlier, TJ had been advised by cell phone from Exeter that our wine tasting was cancelled due to our late arrival. While we showered, TJ set out to find us another tasting. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He found a place right down the street from the hotel where the proprietor agreed to give us a tour of his wine cave and a tasting of his sparkling wines.

The caves are located deep beneath the center of town under the ruins of what was in the 14th century, the church of Pope Clement V, the first pope to reside in France. The caves may have been the source of the stone for the church or used as a secret entrance or some other clandestine use. Today, the caves are used to produce and store over one million bottles of sparkling wines made by the Methode Champanoise. Since 1998, French law prohibits using the name champagne to describe sparkling wines from those made outside the Champagne appellation.

The owner buys his grapes from St. Emilion growers. He produces and bottles his wines totally in the caves. He riddles (turns) the bottles by hand for his high end product, Les Cordeliers Prestige Creman de Bordeaux NV. His second level product is turned by machine and stored throughout the maze of caves. We also saw his underground bottling and labeling operation. He produces a white that is 70-80% semillon as well as a rose’ using red grapes…pretty good at 10.5 euro. I bought three bottles of his NV Prestige, which was totally consumed by the troops before we ended the week.

This was a very enjoyable tour and tasting with a lot of history mixed in. The cobblestone ramp down into the cave was moist and steep, adding to the adventure. I was most impressed with the history of St. Emilion in general and this site in particular.

Megan and I walked to the other edge of the town in rain before dinner. There are many wine shops in St. Emilion offering huge verticals of the finest French wines. I looked at verticals of Chateau Yquem, Petrus, Margeaux and other premier wines dating back to the 80’s through the current vintages. The prices were steep but St. Emilion looks like a place where the visiting clientele can afford it…except eleven crazy folks that biked here in the rain. Mark reported seeing a nice Jeroboam selling for 14,000 euros….a virtual steal at that price.

We walked down a nearby narrow cobblestone street to Logis de la Cadene for dinner for a 27 euro prix fixe menu. A cozy, upscale-looking venue, with a nice wine list…all French. I had a salmon trio starter (opting out of the foie gras) followed by a very nice grilled sea bass topped with a sardine puree that was excellent. I ended with a cobbler that was disappointing. Megan had wonderful tomato salad with what she described as the best bread on the trip. She had grilled cod for her entrée and went for coffee instead of cobbler. We had three very disappointing wines that I didn’t bother to record.

On Wednesday morning, we had a leisurely walk around town. It had stopped raining and this was our first daylight viewing of this special place. I wouldn’t mind coming back here when we had more time and could enjoy some of the upscale hotels and restaurants plus tour some of the St. Emilion chateaux.

We left a bit late for our first tasting at the Chateau de la Riviers in the Fronsac appellation…naturally on top of a different hill. With no rain, we were only slowed by our constant map checks and reconnoitering. As we made a long steep climb toward the chateau, I was struggling slowly behind Megan who was having a particularly difficult time of it. I theorized that her bike was too big for her and her bad leg was taking its toll…but then I noticed that her rear tire was practically flat. I elected not to tell her of the problem until she got to the top…it seemed like a good idea at the time but I can’t reconstruct exactly why. I didn’t tell her at the top and TJ pumped up the tire to see if it would hold. Megan was not a happy biker at this point…wondering how long it had been flat.

The uphill ride was worth it for both the view of the vineyards below and the beauty and charm of Chateau de la Riviers. Built in 1080 I think, this perfectly restored chateau looked more like a castle. Our lovely hostess spoke excellent French but little English as she guided us through the caves that were originally the quarry for the chateau and homes in the area until 1930 when they were converted to wine storage. TJ translated for us as we wandered into the dark, musty cave. Wines were stored in niches everywhere. The owner has a stone table in the caves complete with stone chairs for uncomfortably impressing 49 of his closest friends in the cold, damp atmosphere.

In the huge and lovely tasting room, we tasted a Prince de la Riviere 2006 claret and a Chateau de la Riviere 2001, both reds. When asked if these would keep well, our lovely guide responded “Oui, but not very long”…she should have been a politician.

The courtyard inside the chateau overlooks a beautiful vineyard-filled valley…one of the most spectacular views on the tour. The wine and gift shop was very well done ala some of the wineries in Napa Valley. The chateau also operates as an upscale B&B that I’d love to come back to. The downside is that they have no restaurant so you have to drive into St. Emilion to eat. We met a nice couple from NYC that were staying at the chateau. Thomas Jefferson has also stayed here but had left quite a bit before we arrived.

We biked on to find lunch in the village of Lugan. Along the way, we passed an old gent that applauded us on like we were the Tour de France peloton. Once again it was a navigating nightmare and I wasn’t certain we really were in search of La Fourchette Dort or just stumbled upon it for lunch. In either case, it was a good decision. We enjoyed a wonderful peasant lunch starting with a salad and pate’ bar. Our server, an older lady in a housedress, informed of how many of what was left for us in the kitchen. I loved it! I had grilled pork chop sitting on a bed of spinach steamed with garlic and butter. I had a fruit cocktail for dessert. I passed on the table wine after yesterday’s experience.

After a leisurely lunch, we learned that we faced a long ride to our next destination. We biked through towns, villages, hamlets and vineyards. Megan fell trying to avoid hitting Stuart when he swerved suddenly. She was saying “I’m not hurt” even before she hit the ground and hurt herself…physically and emotionally. She fell a second time on cobblestones as we were leaving a small, picturesque, historic town. Her “mojo” was fading rapidly.

As we biked down a one lane road, TJ almost got hit by a car speeding in the other direction while he road in the middle of the lane on a curve. This could have been a disaster, especially if we lost our map too!

He took advantage of this little incident to replace Megan’s brakes and flat tire. This took quite a while with everyone killing time watching. Eventually, Mark led the others into the next town while the three of us worked on the bike and TJ took a call from his girlfriend in London. The group was awaiting us in the next town at the designated spot and we were once again on our way.

We had a long ride along the River Gironde after it was joined by the Dordogne (about 25 miles) near Bourg. To help matters it rained part of the way. We passed Chateau Berlequet where I stopped to take a photo of this Grand Cru chateau. The Gironde is a navigable estuary off the Atlantic, but is often referred to as a river and is formed from the meeting of the rivers Dordogne and Garonne just below the city of Bordeaux.

We arrived at the Auberge du Porche at 6:30 pm in Blaye. We were all exhausted after what was our longest single run. The fine restaurant was closed on Wednesday but the inn rooms were kept open for us.

Blaye is as port town of reasonable size known for two things from what I can tell…it has a ferry across the Gironde to the Haut-Medoc and Medoc (no bridge around) and an old citadel of gigantic proportion. There are a lot of al fresco restaurants along a little tributary that is dry at low tide, an indication that we are very close to the coast.

At this point, I decided that we needed a break from the group dinners and conversations…and the group had probably grown tired of us old foggies. We elected to walk to the restaurant with the group and then stroll the town and tour the citadel. We climbed the hill and crossed the dry moat into the old fortress to find, much to our surprise a little village of shops, bars restaurants and lodgings. We walked the cobblestone street and found a little creperie, Creperie Le Bation where we had a light dinner and a beer or two. I had a salad fromagerie and Megan enjoyed a veggie pancake. Both were good and all we wanted, having grown tired of the prix fixe multi-course dinners.

During dinner we had a heart to heart talk about Megan’s difficult day of riding and agreed that she should take tomorrow off to recover and meet us at the hotel in Pauillac on the other side of the river. She could ride in the taxi that would be hauling all of our bags to the next hotel.

Back at the hotel, Stuart, Emily, Mark, Alyson and TJ helped us drain one of the bottles of sparkling wine that we acquired in St. Emilion. We all sat on a little second floor patio outside our room where we were had all our wet clothes hanging out the window drying. It was a nice way to end a long day.

We had breakfast at 8:15 am \at the inn. I regrettably was feeling the effects of too much champagne as we planned the day. We were going to have a picnic at our first tasting in the Haut-Medoc across the river. We biked a few feet from the hotel to a very nice market where the women purchased our picnic fixing’s (jambon, salami, several pate’s, rouquefort, camembert and a few other cheeses, couscous, small tomatoes, butter, carrot salad and water plus paper plates, etc). Ian was assigned the task of finding a boulangerie to buy fresh baguettes for everyone. He returned with a six or eight steaming baguettes that I stuffed in my pannier. Loaded with our picnic lunch, we coasted down the hill to meet the 10 am ferry.

Megan was all dressed and coifed for a day of luxury touring in the taxi. The driver and his wife, a very nice and friendly couple that spoke no English but still understood her every need. We walked our bikes aboard and the taxi drove on with us. The ride across was very scenic and took almost 45 minutes since the crossing required going upstream and around a large island. TJ replaced my brake pads along the way. We could see four nuclear reactors downstream below Blaye in the distance as a military jet screamed overhead.

I kissed Megan farewell at the dock and biked away. Our ride was a short one of only a few miles to Chateau du Raux. The chateau, basically a lovely farmhouse with stone outbuildings was built in the 18th century and has been passed from mother to daughter since 1879, according to their website. Patrick Bernard runs the vineyard and winery under the steady control of his father and mother who live there with him. I got the distinct impression that this overworked, handsome young man had a lot better things to do that entertain us for a few hours. He looked tired and distracted but once he got into it, he was a great host.

The Chateau du Raux has 18 hectares of vineyards, half merlot and half cabernet sauvignon. This Haut-Medoc winery produces 90,000 bottles of estate Bordeaux Cru wine annually, strictly following the Bordeaux appellation laws. Patrick was very sensitive when someone questioned the non-Chateau du Raux labels on a pallet of boxes in the overstuffed warehouse. He anxiously explained that this was a pallet of labels, not wine and proceeded to open a box to prove that it wasn’t wine. Apparently they take the laws seriously.

They blend the grape juice about 50/50 merlot/cabernet sauvignon and age the wine in the French oak barrels ranging from 1-10 years old. At a cost of about 800 euros per barrel, I can see why they only buy 10% new each year. They remove the leas from the barrels every three months by pumping out the wine and draining the leas. The leas are collected in a separate vat where they are then sold to a vinegar distillery as part of the state alcohol requirements. The wine is then mixed and placed back in the barrels for another three months and repeat the process for 18 to 24 months. They want to avoid putting the wine back in the same barrels since this would make many different wines rather than one vintage.

At the end of the aging period, they follow the Bordeaux rules by adding six egg whites to each barrel to remove any remaining solids before bottling. Because of their size and lack of a big labor force, they use an outside firm to bottle. A big bottling and labeling truck arrives on site and over two days bottles all of the vintage to make room for the new vintage that will be picked this fall. They hire another firm to machine pick the grapes. All of this is done to both save money and to avoid a large staff that would be very expensive under French job-for-life labor laws. As a result, poor Patrick and a helper do most of the labor of running the vineyard and making/aging the wine. Old Dad decides the blend each year and the pricing and Mom does the books it appears. Patrick is a graduate onologist (that’s someone who spends time in college drinking wine…I must have been a brewologist) and has some new ideas that he must keep to himself until he owns the chateau.

They make only one vintage and sell the second vintage (younger vines) in bulk to merchants for table wine. Their laws require this apparently. 50,000 bottles of the first growth is sold to a Swiss supermarket chain and the rest sold within France. They do not export. Patrick explained that the 2005 vintage is the best in many years and that is is true for the whole region. When asked what the price of this great vintage will be, he indicated his father has increased it from something like 6.70 euro per bottle for the 2004’s ( a mediocre year) to a whopping 7.30 euro for the 2005’s. We were all shocked that they weren’t doubling the price but he explained that they are producers, not marketers. This is obvious but I suppose that a single customer buying 60% of production dictates their price. They need a marketing person in a bad way!

We sat in the warm sun in the garden outside the chateau and enjoyed a wonderful lunch with Patrick. We tasted the 2004 and 2003 vintages of their Cru Bourgeois wines and enjoyed our warm baguettes and great lunch. Life is good!

After lunch, we all stood in a queue in the chateau living room to use the restroom. This was a real treat to be inside a French farmhouse and seeing how people live and work. We saw the family portraits, modest furniture and a collection of stuff that real people accumulate over a lifetime. The 20 year old tile floor was to die for. With a coat of fresh paint and some new furnishing, this would be a real showplace. It was obvious that this is a struggling, proud family-owned business facing the vagaries of weather, market prices and high labor costs.

This visit to a real working winery and a great picnic made this a trip highlight…and this unfortunately was Megan’s day off!

We left Chateau du Raux to make another short ride to Chateau Lynch-Bages…a Fifth or Cinquiemes Cru Classe wine. We took mostly back roads with the requisite number of stops to check the map. Located in a small village outside Pauillac, Chateau Lynch-Bages is more like visiting Beringer Winery in Napa Valley than any we had visited so far. The winery and vineyards are perfectly maintained. The owners are developing a small upscale village with a gift shop, tavern/brasserie and boulangerie already operating.

We lazed in the little fake village while we waited for our English tour to begin. Our glib guide, a Swiss/Philippine girl raised in Hong Kong, gave us a packaged, fast walk though tour that was superficial at best. We tasted a 2001 first growth and 2002 second growth marketed under a different label. She told us that the 2003 and 2004 were well-received but that the owners thought the 2001 was an “underappreciated” vintage. I took this to mean that they were dumping the unsold 2001 on the visitors.

The only thing I learned from the tour was that I could actually smell the tobacco aroma of the wine better when the glass was empty after dumping the wine out…an expensive way to appreciate wine.

As we left the winery, TJ studied his maps to find Pauillac where we would be spending the next two nights. Mark volunteered that it had to be the town with the church tower not far away. A debate ensued and I volunteered that I was going to follow Mark’s instincts over TJ’s maps. We won and Mark was right. We road about one mile into Pauillac and wandered the maze of one way streets to the waterfront and our hotel where we found Megan awaiting us on the balcony of our room as we parked our bikes.

Megan was not happy with me when I excitedly told her about the easy, short ride and the wonderful picnic at Chateau du Raux. To make up for it, I showered and walked with her into town where we found a pattiserie and enjoyed a cup of great coffee and a pastry. We walked back the one mile to Chateau Lynch-Bages so she could see the gift shop and enjoy a beer with me at the tavern/brasserie. By the time we got back, we were talking again.

The Hotel France et Angleterre is on the waterfront road across from the Gironde. A large marina of sailboats stretches the length of the town and a pier/dock is in the center. The hotel is fairly new with a design inspired by old two-story Holiday Inns. Our room was large with a spacious bathroom and great shower. The TV worked…if you spoke French…and the balcony was nice. The only shortfall was a lack of air conditioning. It was warm and it had not rained all day. Megan had washed a few things in the sink and had them hanging out on the balcony to dry. Our first really nice day since leaving Charlotte.

We had dinner at the hotel on the outside patio on the street. We started with drinks with Mike who was rejoining us after the funeral. The meal was another prix fixe. I had gespacho, steak tartare and warm fruit with ice cream. I enjoyed it all even though my steak tartare resembled dog puke and judging by the size of the portion, it was a big dog. Megan enjoyed a grilled leek on mescalum followed by grilled lamb and the heated fruit. The lamb was over-grilled and/or underfed.

We chose a Mouton Cadet blanc, a below average second or third growth that I did not partake in. Nobody liked it. The maitre d’ chose a second bottle that was worse according to reports. I continue to stick by my rule that the higher the price the better the wine.

I enjoyed a cigar as we strolled along the waterfront after dinner. After discussion, Megan and I decided that we would go off on our own tomorrow so that I could see the Premier Grand Cru Estates in the area (4 of the 5 most famous wineries in the world) rather than do the Medoc tour with the group. The group tour was a long ride down the hot flat Medoc and back, visiting two wineries and having picnic en route. I did not want to just ride for the heck of it so we thought we would go off on our own.

We got off to a slow start on Friday the 13th. We all met a 8:15 am and wasted 45 minutes looking for a place for us North Americans to cash our hoard of Traveler’s Checks. This was an exercise in futility. We stopped at several banks but one didn’t have any money and the other required that we have an account. Finally we found that the Post Office would cash checks. Mark and Alyson cashed theirs while we elected to use the ATM and cash the checks when we got home.

Everyone was cooling their heals back at the hotel waiting for our return. Megan went with the rest of the gang to get picnic stuff while I tried to plot our route for the day. This turned out to be a mistake because Megan had no pannier to carry our picnic fixin’s back and the others were heading south. Mike rode back with her carrying the bags and then left to catch up with the peloton.

We were finally on our way by 11 am, heading north along the broad river on back roads toward Bordeaux. We stopped for some photos of the beautifully groomed vineyards of Chateau Latour, one of the four Premier Grande Cru houses in the Haut-Medoc. Riding a bit further, we joined the main road, which was lightly traveled, and soon entered the little village of Saint-Julien. I took a photo of Chateau LaTour, a Premier Cru through the gate and one of Megan standing at the abutting entrance to Chateau Latour, which was closed for the noon to 2 pm lunch break. We were able to ride into the vineyards and catch a photo of what must be a lovely, old pumping station on the property.

We rode on north to Chateau Beychevelle, a 4th Grand Cru open for public tours. This is a grand building built in the 18th century and is now owned by an insurance company and a Japanese spirits firm. They have pumped a lot of money into refurbishing the facility and making it a tourist attraction. We were fortunate to catch an English tour just starting. Our guide spoke perfect English and well-informed. I was particularly taken by her skin red tight slacks, accidentally caught in a group photo on the tour.

The chateau has changed hands a number of times as owners ran into financial trouble coming up with tax payments for the property. The current owners have the deep pockets to promote the brand and upgrade the property. Although seldom achieved, their goal is to be re-designated to a 3rd Grande Cru, which would recoup there investment overnight.

The tour was similar to the one at Chateau Lynch-Bages except our guide was much better and friendlier. We did learn that although the owners invested heavily in new stainless steel, insulated, temperature controlled tanks for the initial fermentation steps but have found that the old concrete, thermo-controlled tanks work better. As a result they make their 1st growth wines in concrete then move to French oak barrels. They use the stainless steel vats for their 2nd growth wine and also use a blend of French and America oak barrels for these younger wines. Apparently they feel that the America oak imparts fruit flavors that improve the drinkability of this wine. My guess is that they are cheaper than the French oak. She also said that they have 10 cooperages supplying their French oak barrels and that if they don’t blend the wine when they are removing the leas, the coopers can tell if the wine was aged in their barrels versus their competitors.

After touring their caves and hearing the same turning/egg white story again, we got to walk in the courtyard gardens of this grand chateau…actually more like a palace. The courtyard sits about a mile from the Gironde with a great expanse of lawn running down to the water. Apparently the chateau was originally owned by an admiral, which explains the name and logo of their second growth wine, Admiral. We were told that their 2005 1st growth will be a very high quality vintage. (It looks like we want to stock up on Bordeaux early next year when they come out.

Part of the tour included a walk through one restored wing of the U-shaped chateau to see a nice art exhibit. We were then escorted back to the welcome center, where you could buy wine but no tastings were offered…not a bad tour considering it was free.

We biked back toward Pauillac, stopping for a photo of Chateau Pichon-Longueville, a Second Grand Cru. The chateau is beautiful with four towers on each corner. It is being renovated so we could not visit. I found this chateau to best represent my idea of a grand Bordeaux estate.

We stopped for lunch in a school yard in the village of St. Laurent along the road to Pauillac. Sitting in the shade of a tree, we enjoyed our baguette, pate’ cheese selection and fruit washed down with bottled water. A wonderful lunch on a beautiful day in the Haut-Medoc. To add to this idyllic scene, a car drove by and a young woman yelled “Bon appetite”. This is what we had in mind when we decided to take this trip.

We biked around Pauillac to the east and soon found Chateau Lafite-Rothchild, our second Premier Grand Cru of the day. We biked a long entrance road through acres and acres of finely groomed vineyards. A tractor was weeding the rows as we passed. The chateau itself doesn’t have a distinguishing architectural feature that we could discern. Instead it is a rambling assemblage of stone buildings and warehouses situated on a large lake and garden surrounded by vineyards. I stopped in the office and learned that the tours were booked through next week, unfortunately. We were, however, permitted to wander the grounds.

We took some photos of the vineyards, buildings and gardens and then stumbled on a warehouse where pallets of the highly rated 2005 vintage were sitting on pallets ready to ship to brokers in Paris next month to make room for the next vintage. Interestingly, the pallets of the highly valued, expensive wine that were at the opening of the warehouse were enjoying the hot sunlight along with us…much for keeping the wine at temperature.

Just a mile from Chateau Lafite-Rothchild is Chateau Mouton Rothchild, our third Premier Grand Cru of the day. We parked our bikes and walked through their lovely planting garden to a well-appointed visitor center where a group was assembling for a French language tour. I volunteered that we would be happy to go on the French tour but they said they were sold out until August and would not yield. We were able to walk the extensive grounds which were more like a park. Beautifully groomed lawns with streams, ponds and tree-lined gravel lanes make this a tranquil site. Two-story stone buildings abound on the property, some appearing to be wine warehouses and others either offices or dormitories. The main winery looked to be a modern mausoleum style building, lacking any charm. They age most of their wine in barrels in man-made caves under the property.

We biked back the short distance to Pauillac where we arrived about 4 pm. We showered and had a beer while we waited or the rest of the Chain Gang to return. They drifted in around 6 pm, hot and exhausted after a 50 km ride, half in a returning headwind. They visited two wineries, one of which offered 17 wines for tasting. They had their picnic lunch along the way. Mark and Alyson arrived a little later, having separated from the group at some point in search of a roman amphitheater ruin more inland on the Medoc.

I opened the remaining two bottles of sparkling wine from St. Emilion and we all relaxed and shared stories of our day and week together. We had grown to be good friends over the week and pretty much each knew each others life stories. A very nice group of folks that I’d love to travel with again.

Our final dinner was another prix fixe at the hotel. I had a salmon fume’, a breast of rabbit (good but dry) and a strawberry gratin. Megan couldn’t resist ordering a Gourmand Foie Gras salad (she pushed the main ingredient to the side and later shared it with Mike), a rosette of lamb (tough and tasteless) and chocolate cake made with the egg yolks left over from all the eggs white used in clarifying the wines in the barrels. She claims this was her least favorite meal of the trip.

Mike selected our wines which included:

• Chateau La Rose Perganson 1998 Haut-Medoc rouge Cru Bourgeois.
• Chateau Forireau Le Cygne2005 white Bordeaux
• La Dame de Mauccillow 2005 white Bordeaux

I found the red very acceptable but the group totally disliked the two whites. Were our palettes improving?

Emily passed around an envelope for each of us to add a tip of what ever we cared to contribute. I put in some euros and added a tip that they use a GPS rather than maps in the future. After a lot of hugs and kisses, we retired to our rooms.

Those of us going to Bordeaux were leaving by two taxis at 6:30 am to catch our TGV train to Paris. The hotel had a nice breakfast buffet set up for us as the drivers loaded all of our bags. The drive north to Bordeaux was up the same road we came in on two days earlier but the ground was covered a lot faster. The one hour drive included a ride past Chateau Margaux , our fourth of the five Premier Crus. I’m counting this as a visit although it was really a drive-by.

Bordeaux is a big city with a lot of industry and a lovely waterfront. Kevin was planning to tour here for two days before heading back to Ireland. We left him at the station. Emily, Stuart, Ian, Sharon, TJ and Megan and I caught the train to Paris. Today was Bastille Day, one of France’s most traveled days and the crowd in the station proved that point. We were all seated in different cabins so we never saw them again after boarding. Our week as a Chain Gang was officially over.

Reflecting on the weeks experience, here’s my list of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The Good

• Great group of people that became friends as the week bore on.
• Good, friendly and helpful guides although TJ (aka Pathfinder) got stuck with a tough assignment on unfamiliar territory
• Conversations on the road and at dinner with every member of the Gang
• The colors…fields, flowers, plants, buildings enhanced by all the rain
• The architecture…the chateaux and villages
• Lunches every day…in an open barn, a picnic at a working chateau, small restaurants in backwater towns
• Seeing four of the five Premier Cru chateaux
• Gaining an understanding of the culture and geography of the Dordogne and Bordeaux wine regions
• St. Emilion
• The rivers…wide and beautiful with swans aplenty
• The vineyards…so groomed and lush with fruit on roaming hillsides and the flat Haut-Medoc
• Patiseries, boulangeries and fresh markets
• Fields of sunflowers
• The EuroStar and TGV trains
• Scenic and charming St. Emilion
• Daniel LeCoy and Patrick Bernard…interesting, friendly and informative winemakers
• Warm baguettes, the fresh local cheeses and the pate’
• Chateau de la Riveire in Fronsac...most scenic view and beautiful chateau/B&B
• Our romantic day touring the Premier Grand Crus and picnic lunch alone

The Bad

• Rain..gets top billing as the least pleasant part of the trip
• Hills…steeper and longer than we expected
• Wet clothes
• Jokes…pretty bad overall but got worse as the week progressed. We all need to keep our day jobs.
• Prix fixe dinners…after a long, exhausting day of biking, we deserved better.
• Frequent stops to check maps

The Ugly

• Megan’s bad luck with her tire and brakes and “mojo”
• My steak tartare in Pauillac (appearance only)
• Some of people in the train stations
• My attempt at speaking French
• Can’t come up with any more...well, maybe one!